y^BETELGUESE^ 

fU* JEAN LOUIS De ESQUE-|^ ' 




Class _^S_^_liC_ 
Book , H. 3 B 5 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr 



BETELGUESE 

A TRIP THROUGH HELL 



By JEAN LOUIS De ESQUE 

Author of" The Flight of a Soul", etc. 




JERSEY CITY 

CONNOISSEUR'S PRESS 

1 908 



LIShARYof GOMGRcSS 
Two CoBies Received 

MAR la 1809 



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Copyrig-ht, 1907 and 1908, by 

/^ean Louis de Esque 

Entered at Stationers^ Hall, London, E. C, 

All Rights Reserved 



CO 

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TO 

Those that felt the wand of Muse — 
Queen Posy's shaft of subtle art — 
Soared to the distant heights of blue, 
Past onyx lees that Sunsets dyed, 
And put to Vellum Couplets' fuse. 
Sped same to Fate with timid heart. 
Then shed dim tears in Sorrow's pew, 
This work's respectfully inscribed. 



PREFACE 



To the readers of this poem an apology is needed for 
affixing thereto a praem. Some friends of mine have 
been plaguing me beyond the restrictive line of Patience 
for the true cause of conceiving the accompanying col- 
lection of words, balderdash or what you will, some even 
asseverating with the eruditeness of an Aristole that it 
was a nebulous idea, an embryonic form of thought hi- 
bernating within the cavities of my sinciput's inner 
apex, the remnants of that wild phantasmagoric dream of 
''vicious, vulpine labyrinths of hell," partly expounded 
in my "The Flight of a Soul." 

Now to satisfy everybody but my friends I throw my 
prejudices to the winds and confess, to wit: That I, 
with the buckler of Will, wooed Oblivion on September 
the sixth at exactly 5 p.m., having been up at my desk 
mauling and drubbing the English language with a ven- 
geance for thirty-six consecutive hours, and that I awoke 
at 12.30 A.M. that selfsame night with the entire con- 
tents of the accompanying ? (have as yet not de- 
cided in what category the critics will consign this weird 



6 PREFACE 

hypotyposis of the Supernal) jingling through my tired 
brain. I set to work at exactly 12.45 a.m. and wrote 
until our esteemed companions of the nocturnal hours 
ceased their unloved music (mosquitos), 5.05 a.m., hied 
myself back to bed and hypothecated as many winks as 
Dame Slumber saw fit to allot to me, who am at con- 
tinued war with her silent wand. The same tactics 
were employed during the succeeding fifteen nights, 
wherein I penned eight thousand one hundred and six- 
teen (8116) lines. This is the truth, the whole and in- 
tegral truth, and nothing but the unexpurgated truth, 
so help me Muse (she's blind as a bat) and Satan, of 
whom I've writ in such an unbecoming manner that, 
henceforth, I must perforce seek my future Elysian in 
other haunts than those of the above named Cosmopo- 
ietic 's own, for fear that his uncoped wrath may blast me 
into an ape-faced minstrel or, like one red-haired varlet 
draped with the cognomen of ''Nero," use my un- 
bleached bones for illuminating the highway to his in- 
sidiate lair. 

To the readers this question may present itself, to wit : 
Why place Hell in the bowels of Betelguese? Why not 
the sun or moon? 

In the first instance the former sphere is eliminated 
as a possibility on account of its nature. Being a huge 
nucleous mass of aeriform fluid, nothing containing 



PREFACE 7 

animal or vegetable life could possibly exist either on 
or within its bowels. The moon, too, is excluded for 
the same .reason as is our earth, it having at one time 
been a part of the latter, broken off by one of the giant 
planets long before the pleioncene era. Betelguese being 
a celestial pariah, an outcast, the largest of all known 
comets or outlawed suns in the universe; and, further, 
so long as Hell has not been definitely placed, why not 
figure this hybrid planet as a possibility ? 

Astronomers throughout the world remember the 
colossal outburst in the constellation Perseus that oc- 
curred on February 20, 1901, when one sun exploded, 
or two made collision with appalling force. It was ob- 
served through telescopes and could be seen with the 
naked eye in full daylight. Both suns were destroyed 
as suns — that is, they were turned into thin gas and 
vanished from sight of the largest telescope within less 
than a year. 

Had each sun been the centre of a system of eight 
worlds like our sun; and imagine each world, sixteen in 
all, to be inhabited with human beings; then they all 
perished in a short time after collision and died of what 
the astronomers call ''fervent heat." 

Vega, far more larger than our sun, appears station- 
ary. Our sun, with its family of moons and comets, is 
moving toward it at the fearful pace of fourteen miles 



8 PREFACE 

per second. At its present rate of speed — and if Vega 
is really a "fixed" planet — then our sun would reach 
it in 320,000 years. However, it is a known certainty 
that the quantity of matter that is invisible is so much 
greater than the visible that the visible may be ignored. 
There may, too, be hundreds of millions of dark bodies,^ 
extinct constellations far larger than our own sun. Any 
one of these could approach our solar system and anni- 
hilate it with its impact for, in passing the orbit of the 
earth on their way around the sun, they attain a regular 
velocity of 26^ miles per second. If one of these dark 
comets should overtake the earth and istrike it, the 
velocity of impact would be about eight miles per sec- 
ond; but if it should meet the earth in a head-on colli- 
sion, the speed, when it struck, would be forty-five miles 
per second, a momentum beyond the power of the brain 
to fathom — indeed, man can not think of sixty miles 
per minute. Let a solid nucleous collide with the earth 
and imagination would reel at the result. 

The earth moves over 18 J miles every second, and this 
added to or subtracted from 26J makes 45 or 8. If a 
comet should strike at right angles to the direction of 
the earth's motion the speed of collision would be 26J 
miles. But 8, 26^ or even 15 would hurl destruction if 
large enough. 

A visible change is taking place in the giant sun Betel- 



PREFACE 9 

guese. Its nebulae is slowly but surely disappearing. 
One hundred years hence it may be a dark planet, in- 
visible to even the most powerful telescope. However, 
Hell will reign on, through eons and eons; and, if this 
sun, or any other, contains its kingdom, and mankind 
lives for another thousand years or more, those who 
should be so unfortunate as to miss the jagged heights to 
Paradise need not worry, for glozing imps will lead them 
to the fasthold of Typhon's weird home. Have no fear. 

September 22d, MCMVII. 



WHEN I AM GONE 



w/ HAT good is Fame when I am dead and gone, 

When in immarceseible regions 
My temple rots and soul doth storm and mourn 
As bones of mine adorn an early grave ? 
Yv^holl hear and know that I worked hard and long, 
That twin sighs and tears storm 'd me by legions. 
My life, a sunless one — bleak and forlorn. 
No ray of light whilst I in thralldom slave ? 

What good is Fame when I am dead and gone, 
When in fenowed abyss', stark and cold, 
I wend my solemn footsteps and atone, 
Whilst Fame my brow doth crown with its renown? 
Who '11 know that heart and soul bled on and on, 
That storm-swept aches and woes were mine untold. 
My life a waste, from which there stole a moan, 
No Aureole whilst I in sorrow drown? 

What good is Fame when I am dead and gone. 
When far and wide my praise is heard and sung. 



12 WHEN I AM GONE 

And busts and marble-heads my deeds unfurl 
To multitudes that knew me not in flesh ? 
Not when I'm gone care I for Renown's dawn, 
Now, whilst I labour at Fame's lowest rung, 
Let me reap dame Approval's brightest pearl 
And sip its olpe as I my battles thresh. 



BETELGUESE 



ARESSED by crystal dews and light 
Beyond the realm of scale and fin, 
Incarian Thought flits Fancy wings 
To hazards where a crimson urn 
Makes scarlet this eternal height 
Of sunless suns and reigning sin, — 
Flame-decked this plain of warring kings 
Where poisoned fumes and beacons burn ! 
And thro' the hyoids, huge and red. 
Past portals black and guidons bright 
To onyx lees and opal sands. 
The Cyclopean vaults of dwale, 
And cavern'd shapes that Typhon bled, 
Greet each wand'ring spectre's sight ; 
Where pixies dance on wind-blown strands, 
Lurke gyte incubi in a hall. 
Here, then, reigns gyving, batter'd Doom ! 
Where shadows vague and coffined light, 



16 BETELGUESE 

Spit broths from splinter'd wracks and domes. 
Where viscid mists and vulpine cries 
Rise from the moat of dungeoned gloom 
And rasp the stationed walls of night 
Until sequestered skulls and bones 
Are made to hear the moaning sighs 
That some mad Titan, rayed in gold, 
Wrests from Damnation's siffling tomb. 
And labyrinths of Horror's Home, 
^Mid vapours green and aisles unsunned, 
Provoke each cursing mattoid's fold 
Until the night is changed to noon 
By cowled magicians on a dome. 
Then wizardry, strange, unsummed, 
Reveals each varlet, Figgum's might : 
A hemless rabble from the South 
That some wild Trojan flayed and curs'd, 
Skirr thro' the Cauldrons broken lane 
And wing for implex strands and light. 
There, where tapers flare on Hell's mouth 
This clan damns each giant Soldan first. 



/ 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 17 

And Medeas in this vast plain, 
Who blink at yon dysodile lamps, 
Slap thenars and each bifurcous 
As javels drink from scyphus' bright. 
Bloodcurdling monsters on a rope 
That sate upon the damn'd one's camps 
As hell-winds gleam most glorious — 
Each VandaFs music day or night ! 
Vain ! vain ! Each isle of hidden Hope ! 
Alas ! Alas ! Each olpe of Remorse ! 
Each vaulted soul and spiral thought, 
Swirl in the throes of waters cold ; 
Where rivers with the venom crawls, 
Croak bat-faced incubi till hoarse. 
And succubi that Hecate taught, 
Bedecked in byss and spangled gold. 
Sing runes unto the dungeoned halls. 
Then burning ghauts and crimsoned peaks, 
Vomit each, green, abhorrent clouds ; 
The Temple's drum sounds tomb and death 
To those that came for unsung trust. 



18 BETELGUESE 

And pyres that smouldered for three weeks. 

Spit wenches' blood thro' addling crowds 

And filch each leering vyper's breath, — 

Vile japes that dam all struck with dust ! 

Erelong unholy fugitives roam 

'Mid imbosk caves and moaning dales 

To piercing screes of purple gloom, 

Where gurgling sighs and rasping moans,-- 

Each bloody vampyre's home of loam ^ 

As life-tides drip to scarlet vales, — 

Unshadowed haunts of darkling Doom ! 

Add terror to the rasping groans 

That roaring surfs of rubic blood 

Fling to each afrite's acrid crypt. 

And mildewed skulls and ashen boner 

That lie before each pillared mount, 

Speak tidings of a leprous flood. 

And where giants carcants flare and sit, 

The battle-crests and surging foams 

That toss each swoll'n Cauldron's Count 

As pyramidal realms unsunned 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 19 

Glare at the stricken, tamper'd souls, 
Stark wenches seek blind seers of lust 
And curse each monster's hairless head. 
Where fungus-fagots gleam unstunned 
As witches dig unfathomed holes 
And bury Helms in powdered dust, 
Sleep mourners of the newly dead 
Until rayed Aureoles bright, flare, 
And sparkle like Asian stars. 
Hyperaspists of templed night, 
And yawning caverns cold and bleak, 
Forsake the crown of addling Care ; 
Whilst afrites in bright jeweled cars. 
Lured by the phosphorescent light, 
Scale an immarcescible peak. 
When giant uncus' of the damn'd 
Shake Palsy's wand of brooding Fear, 
And Hecate spins her daughters round 
The whirHng halls of spastic gloom ; 
When afreets prance on blister'd sand 
As blood-shot jazels deck each peer, 



20 BETELGUESE 

Each empire froths a raving hound 
That storms each zone of purple doom. 
And scarlet foam and hiss of oils, — 
Abhorrent signs of yawning hell ! 
'Mid roaring winds and echoes loud 
As beaches ring with Torture's hold, 
Dim shapes writhe in a cauldron's coils 
While cancered ghouls sound Circe's bell ; 
Where hideous screes stem the crowd, 
FafBing gawks gleam like burnished gold. 

A gangrel imp that Satan flayed, 
Shrieks deeds of sin that man-wrecks wrought 
Ere gyving Death each culprit smote ; 
Where straggling moonbeams cleft a dome, 
A Prince in splendor stands arrayed 
And rants his spleen unto a ghaut, 
Where mongrel whelps their sorrows wrote 
In channels with a harlot's bone. 

A kingdom vast with jasper light 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 21 

Greet jejune souls within this shoal, 
Where witches lure each helot's eye, 
Each gyving hoodlum, seer and sage. 
In blazing tankards gleams a sight 
As o'er their heads giant rocks roll, 
Of skinless nudes that gasp and die 
As poisoned lizards vent their rage. 
Then, vile squats blast the eerie air ! 
Glozing gnomes of pond'rous built, 
Peer at plagues that goddard's hold ; 
Writhe vermin in each ghoul-king's olpe, — 
Blind death within a secret lair ! 
A varlet who his wine hath spilt 
As Scorpions smote him treblefold, 
Is thrown into a stagnant sea 
By Lordly Helm of bad repute, 
Whose visage, curl'd in ughly mien, 
Vext at each leper's font of spleen. 
Invokes a hairless witch to scan 
The shambling hordes that boon refute, 
Who lifts her unguis, long and lean, 



22 BETELGUESE 

To curse each vyper's bloody dream, 

Each mongrel and forsaken man. 

Then quivers that cippus' hurl'd 

As templed vaults are splintered wide; 

And fearful fancies cleave the night 

When reeking gores pierce hollows black, 

Smite vandals that in sleep are curPd: 

And naiads that the vapours hide 

In shadows vague — Unholy light! 

(Spectres to each soul on a wrack) 

Dank caverns of each vaulted soul 

With spiral thoughts of fevered haste, 

'Mid the throb of murderous life 

In haunted zones of vandals gyte, 

Squirm at the pulse of this blind shoal 

Where blood-veined dreams and acrid waste 

Cut thro' the senses like a knife 

And bid Icarian Thought to sit 

Below a bleak, untower'd home, 

Where fagots that the skelp hath stunned — 

Plunderers of unfathomed night! 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 23 

Glare thro' black shadows vague with forms 

Convulsed with cries that pierce each dome 

As impeached gumps seek plains unsunned, 

(Satellites to mounted Light !) 

Teem in the wind-strewn crest of thorns 

A phantom that a charnel urn 

Spewed from its lap and cancer^d fold, — 

Trophies of grim Destiny's crypt ! 

A burning pyre, whose deadly breath 

Stir sighs of men as cesspools burn 

A harlot strewn with virgin gold 

That some malignant, stol'n script, 

Condemn'd to witches' fateful death. 

Spells reigning doom to one and all. 

Where jarbling gumps ride hydras green, 
And utter sharp, a curdling curse, 
And wingless zimbs that storm each dell, 
Glare at each shatter'd dome and wall 
That speak of prowling apes in dream. 
Of dragons drawing Horror's hearse 



24 BETELGUESE 

When bloody lanes of soulless hell 
Bathed monstrous this eternal land. 

When Soldans clasp dank Vellum old, 

And carcants shine like scarlet foam, 

With hiss of snakes and burning oils 

As dirges sway both imps and damned, 

A beacon's light that cleft Doom's fold, 

Peers at the Cyclopean home 

Of furnace-heat and writhing coils 

Of immewed depths as cyphers red 

Proclaim each gyving monster's deed. 

And woful runes rake this giant gloom, 

Phantastic coals lurk in the dust, 

Blind whelps lie in an onyx bed 

And ponder words as thumb-screws bleed 

(Unto the music of king Doom) 

Each gangrel villains heart of lust 

Beyond the halls of numbered dead 
Where lambent lights and crystal dews 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 2b 

Invoke the ghouls to guard each tomb 
That vandals of the sobbing night, 
When hell-winds stir the conquered dead, 
And thunder shook the mourner's pews, 
Giant cavalcades of marshalled Doom 
March thro' the phosphorescent light 
Unto the headland of the West, 
Where pageantries of warriors bold 
Scyle crafty sins and purple lusts 
Until the peaks and portals bright, 
Where buried kings are tombed at rest, 
Sweat odours dank with Torpor's cold; 
Infernal paeons shake the busts 
Of idols planted in the light. 
And, ere immewed gyres froth black mists 
Unto all ghauts and splintered domes 
That cypher signs of dungeoned dell, 
A turgid dawn arrays this vale, 
Each dysodile scavenger sits 
On a tomb and fondles gray bones ; 
An eyeless toad croaks from a well. 



26 BETELGUESE 

Then cosmic force forsakes each dale : 
'Mis Cyclopean pulse of hell 
Giant cauldrons vomit vapours green 
And skirr thro' bristling lanes and halls : 
Whilst beacons die and shrood each soul, 
Dank tears drop on a fatal bell, 
Wrought by a Titan's sombre queen, 
Where graven vypers soop the walls 
With blood from maidens scourged as toll. 
Sentinel silence then holds gloom ! 
Vile squats curse roaring pools inflame, 
A swarthy gump leers at the damn'd, 
A sultry storm invades each realm. 
Reared in incondite depths of doom 
As shadows spell each sinner's name, 
A Necromancer mounts a stand 
That storms and sleet struck with their helm. 
And smites the weird elements. 

A cesspool stunn'd with offal's stench, 
And ulexite — Each mattoid's curse ! 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 27 

Set in twin ridges black and red, 
Obtest the foam-sprayed battlements 
To count the blood-drops on a bench 
That the coals of Tartarus nurse — 
Disastrous, imbosked Torture's bed ! 
Make viscous this grim philster's hold. 

Saffron Teocalli in the West, 

Whose spired domes hold priceless stones, 

And censers' fumes lull sighs and moans 

As barriers dank, flee their fold. 

Betrayed by crystals on a crest 

That ride this kingdom's batter'd gnomes, 

A fitful syrinx stills all groans 

As chasms roar with devils' glee. 

Then fancies greet each goblin's eye, 

Each donga's depth and mount unsunned : 

A quire's rune, in onyx dress. 

And black-linkt harps with eyes that see 

Each blood-set jazel in a sky. 

Where heights eternal reign unstunned, 



28 BETELGUESE 

Pierce sylvan airs that wizards bless. 

Come from sequestered shoals of hell 

Blithe pixies and lithe naiads fair 

That revel till the ev'ning skies 

Grow lustrous as Arcadian noon. 

Then witches in an implex dell, 

With stranggling robes and burnished hair, 

Flee thro' Autumnal shades and dyes, 

While quickly from the sandaled gloom, 

That struggles at the pillared light, 

Provoked by turbid drops of blood, 

She gleams upon a tower'd home 

That gyving hands, of crafty imps, 

Reared for the Vandals of the night, 

Where seething pores froth devils' flood, 

And dusky shales leak scarlet foam. 

Or lightly lifts her feet and skimps 

Unto a rubic, bowered vale, 

To list unto a clanging bell 

That spells these signs to startled wrecks, — 

Titan's satellites. Hell and Circe! 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 29 

The end of her who sought a dale 
Below a weird, dungeoned well, 
That coffins sunken battle-decks 
And a phantasmagoric hearse. 

To muse in gorce's dank and bleak 
'Mid shatter'd mounts that devil's split! 
To mourn in plasmic Temple's fold 
With gyving sod no King can shirk! 
A spangled pomp of Death's gray peak 
Where owls and lizards blink and sit 
As curdling cries of monsters cold 
Pierce hollows deep until they irk, 
Each surf-thrown afrite's eclipsed dome. 
And cursing clans that felt the heat 
That dwale obscured in shadows vague, 
Clash thro' the broken forest boughs 
Until each ronyon's stuck in loam. 
There, then, bivouacs a unco Cheat^ 
Whose limbs were struck with pains of ague, 
Who lifts his sightless eyes and sows 



30 BETELGUESE 

The seeds of Thaumaturgist's arts. 
Then shakes his fist above all necks 
(Whenas the dirges pierce the gloom) 
And sheds his addling tears of woe. 
Perturbed at sights of flashing darts 
That dragons hurl amongst soul-wrecks, 
He smites a staff upon a tomb 
Where phosphorescent torches glow, 
And mouths his words at earless owls, 
Past ribboned dusk and pillared woe, 
Where sonless maids their sorrows heal, 
And mixes purple mists with light, 
Both moaning airs and cringing howls. 
The swirling skelp that heavens show, 
And changes this vast plane of weal, 
This kingdom's tomb of rasping night 
To elfin cheer as dances bloom, 
And speeds his flight from Terror's urn, 
Past jasper lanes where moonstones glow, 
And turns his eyes at writhing Hell, 
Upon the spectral haunts of Doom, 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 31 

Where fiends in hissing Cesspoles burn 
'Mid howls of pain from vassals flow 
That rake each skull-blown vale and dell. 

Where syrt sucks jargling javels mad, 

And carcants cast a luring light 

From mildewed screes and mounts that scyle 

Veiled augueries of batthng Hell, 

A charnel shard assails the damn'd 

Thro^ vapours green and siffling night; 

Monastic caverns rasp each isle; 

A poisoned skink croaks from a well. 

And mournfnl wraiths sob hard and loud, 

A smothered sigh proclaims more woe, 

The lounging imps grasp tomes of old 

And rant therefrom each damn'd one's name. 

And horrors, snarling at each crowd. 

Assail each kingdom with its show: 

A noctivagous dragon bold, 

Hastes thro' the aisles of death and shame 

And haunts the cajons of the dead. 



32 BETELGUESE 

There fungus-tapers gleam like gold 
Before a ghoul-king's jeweled throne: 
There, too, upon a Temple's arch, 
Bivouacs a witch who scans the bed 
Of buried kings and queens struck cold, 
And lifts her voice to splinter'd dome 
To stem the brooding Djinnee march. 
And with the dusk that meteors split, 
She tries the figgum of her lust, 
And throws her voice at portals dark, 
Past burning pyres, where moaning airs 
Call the help of Conjury's script; 
And, ere cyphers burn in the dust 
The names of new souls in this ark, 
The ghosts of the dead prance in pairs. 
This is the sphere of Dust and Tomb ! 
Where Trojans struck with palsied Death 
As Satan smote each cavern's fold, 
And whistling heat swirPd Circe around 
The coffined slabs of Aeaea's womb, 
When kingdoms fought with rasping breath 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 33 

As stellar domes grew black and cold, 
Auric oriflammes storm'd the mount 
As bristling lances smote giant hordes; 
Then gorey devils fought with lust 
As vulpine cries smote each jinn's ear, 
Black Dragons swore beneath their breath 
And murdered all rebellious Lords; 
Strong hands that knew each axe's trust, 
Escutcheons that all princes fear, 
Hurl'd swift destruction and black death. 
Where Titans storm'd a Monarch's throne, 
There sleeps a Ruler carved in stone; 
Where vultures guard a serpent's home, 
A quartered warrior tells its tale. 
Perturbed at dews that drip from dome 
As wattling apes their horrors groan, 
The witch forsakes each glozing gnome, 
Affrighted at this gurgling vale. 

On crimson mounts where hydras peer — 
Affronting devils in the gloom ! 



34 BETELGUESE 

Unsypher^d regions wrapped in light 
That hide dank vapours of each tomb, 
Lurk throaty imps throughout the year 
Who sing their runes as lepers soom; 
Red-embered gnomes within this night 
Where scarlet dyes bathe Torture's womb 1 
And Djinnee gasps add to the sight 
That dragon-worms bred in this surge, 
Build temples for queen Sorrow's home; 
And pageantries of Typhon^s bloom — 
Immarcescible sklayres of night ! 
And shadows bleak, that sins do purge— 
A show for Satan on this throne ! 
Invoke the Cauldron's spraying gloom 
To newer deeds of hell-lashed lust; 
Tho' dusky wizards rake the skies 
(Eternal hounds that all beguile) 
Unstable dreams lure Fancy fane 
Below this star's unfathomed dust, 
Where shatter'd domes list to the sighs 
Of skinless wenches on an isle, 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 35 

Where nymphs call her Christian name. 
Where purple mists like poppies bloom — 
Dank dulse within green rivers cold ! 
A flayed and sobbing maid doth lie; 
Eternal curse of bedlam night 
Speak of sepulchral haunts of Doom; 
Unnumbered skulls their woes have told 
To studded domes and opaque sky 
Beneath the Arching vales of light. 
Alight with fires red and green 
That show the coffers of each tomb, 
Jarbling vandals rake the night-coals, 
Shales and husks; and. ere reigning night 
Provokes each harlot's fitful dream 
To cleave the casements of king Doom 
And reach the swoll'n, acrid shoals, 
Where stationed Mounts are penciled white 
That m.ark the maw of raging hell, 
Till, eyes awake stare at each flame 
Unsung and, on boulders that burn, 
Peer at two lordly squats in dust 



36 BETELGUESE 

As wenches drink from poisoned well, 
*Mid purple sins and naked shame 
In Typhon^s olpe ^nd churning urn 
Of stranded devils, souls and lust. 

When earthly homes are tombed in dust, 
And Life forsakes geotic shoals; 
When midst the tombs of penetence, 
When coffins damp, and slimmy clay, 
Each Lordly Helm is tossed in trust 
To spiral vaults from plasmic holes, 
Convolving cyclones spin him hence 
As agate torches light his way. 
Unmutter^d sighs teem in the air 
As structural stars pass him by. 
And twisting clouds shape eerie forms 
Until he reaches Satan^s home. 
Unholy visions curse and swear, 
Gyte vypers lull each demon's sigh, 
Giant Dragons whom no Remorse storms, 
Shake fists at opals in a dome. 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 37 

And Cesspools vext with odours strong 
From stifling shard and putrid dung, 
'Mid caverns large and Cauldrons deep, 
Vile squats in teeming pewter burn; 
And shrieking vypers wield a prong 
Above a monster, quartered hung. 
The Tasmanian Devils keep 
The sod turned in a gyre's urn 
That no lost soul can undulate: 
Hence seers and sages, tossed in sin, 
Rant rubies to each reigning king, 
Each glowing pyre is fed with oil 
By afreets reared on bottled hate; 
Infernal tapers light this Inn 
As poisoned vapours to us cling; 
Re-embered beacons on this soil 
Flare spastic shadows to each tomb. 

In vain we sigh for fleeing grace 

Within the pale of turbid dyes ! 

In vain we look for hope, sweet rest, 



38 BETELGUESE 

Within this crypt of whistling Doom ! 

When in monastic nights of haze 

The battlements retard giant sighs; 

When marshalled mists from out the West 

Cloak ramparts black with ughly light, 

A rubic Soldan rakes each ghaut, 

Each sleeping vandal, imp and soul. 

No astral eyes laugh from these skies. 

No nightingales sing in the night; 

A dungeoned curse that villains wrought 

Rasp each eternal vault and shoal. 

Then one-eyed mongrels split the dyes 

Of roaring winds and raging storms, 

Dim shapes flee to the haunts of gore, — 

Each Cyclopean Dragon's goal ! 

And groaning cries from maidens fair 

Is heard by spectral, gangrel forms, — 

The writhing thin is flayed some more ! 

Its secret sins, — Black deeds of Soul — 

Is scourged as copper-burnished hair 

Hangs from her alabaster head, 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 39 

Both feet and arms are screwed till black — 
A sign that Hell reigns on, unstunned. 
Then incense swung by priestesses, 
Salute the newly, plunder'd dead, 
The bloody sight upon the wrack, 
Where cringing groans once rose unsummed, 
Is cover'd by the murderess. 

Where restless hawks and chainless ghouls 
Blink bleary orbs at dust and stone; 
And glozing night-gnomes love the sight 
That geysers toss upon their crest, 
Feal afrites bathe in a pool 
And wash each harlot's bloody bone. 
Scorpions on serai's height 
Peer at each forge's raging breast, 
Whilst faffling gumps aud hairless seers 
Stretch shanks and arms and yawn till hoarse, 
And vapours green and beacons red, 
Feared coming Dawn, and fled in haste; 
The bulwarks that each hoodlum fears. 



40 BETELGUESE 

Sink in a cajon's livid course; 

The winds and storms are silent, dead, 

As barriers red bathe the waste. 

What of the sight when Horrors swirl, 

When oceans ring with Terror's roll? 

What of the galley-decks and wrecks 

That felt the force of angry Hell? 

When kingdoms fought each warring Earl, 

The incubi cursed each lost soul; 

When vandals broke the idols' necks, 

Giant battle-axes smote each dell. 

And, then came there galvanic gloom ! 

An acrid oath and savage howl, 

Hurl'd at an idol's austere ghoul 

By grizzled rogue and mocking gnome. 

Perturbed as vandals shine and bloom 

In robes of pearl and tazzled cowl, 

Throw Hecate's spawn into a pool 

Who stung them with a poisoned bone. 

This wanton witch of evil fame. 

Vamped with both hatred, murder, lust, 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 41 

Speeds cycles of the Future's curse 
And damns each goblin, skink and knave. 
Then pyres and ghauts flare once again, 
The halls are swept with burning dust, 
Six Dragons bear the dead one's hearse 
Unto the newly, opened grave. 

Ere the quaking Dawn shakes its crown 
To tower'd peaks and hyoids red 
That hide blind fathoms of this sea, 
An opal light arrays each plain; 
Each naiad rumps on velvet down; 
A bat-shapped Buzzard makes its bed; 
A red-tongued Gecko storms each lee. 
Then apes and adders writhe with pain 
As Cauldrons vomit oils that burn; 
^Mid churning storms of stinging sleet, 
Vial haunts of gore spill their quest 
And murder with unholy lust, 
Wilst fagots, beacons, torches, turn 
Hell's Pompeian shoals to heat; 



42 BETELGUESE 

And viscid mists rise in the West — 
Dank treasures of Damnation's dust ! 
In search of silence, sleep and rest. 

When in a vale we lie and dream 
Of sanded beach and laughing skies, 
When Fancy lifts her wings and soars 
To agate strands and ocean's breast, 
A gangrel soul begins to scream 
Black tokens of prevailing sighs 
As furnace-ovens sweat giant pores. 
And other things perturb each crypt, 
Each vulture's brood and figent owls: 
A belching mountain in the South 
Hurls boulders thro' the fearful night: 
A demon-quire rants from script, 
Led by staccato raspings, howls ; 
A meteor vaults a Cauldron's mouth ; 
A sombre maid doth long for light. 
Bleak wintry winds engulf us all — 
Hosannah ! cry the fretful mobs ; 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 43 

White-heated storms assail all heads — 
Triumphal paeons shake the air ! 
Unnumbered gawks roam thro^ each hall — 
Where Typhon sits, a maiden sobs ! 
Conscience stabs our nightly beds, 
Remorse leers daily at dame Care. 

A Donga, deep with squirming gnats 
And acrid coils, — a hole of Death ! 
And runnels thick with arid dung. 
Flow past a Temple's swoll'n arch, 
Where warring tribes of hungry cats 
Fish for green lizards filched of breath ; 
A palace-dome where runes are sung 
As Satan views his squadron's march, 
Flare twin mineral lights of blue 
That lure each legion foul of home. 
Swarm Trojans right and left with sword ; 
Skirr gloppened w^orriers thro* the night ; 
Roar puteals that toads eschew ; 
Hiss brown snakes to each toothless gnome, 



44 BETELGUESE 

Affrighted at the raving horde 
That crash thro' leprous filth and light- 
Disastrous sights of men gone mad ! 
And pyramidal wall of rock 
Are battle-grounds for waging lust : 
A clashing lance spun vypers round 
The gyrus rind where helots clad 
Each Thaumaturgist in a frock, 
The sign of which spake added trust 
Unto each ghoul-king's able hound. 
Crafty Lords of militant mien, 
Led vanquished to the slaughter-pen ; 
Thumb-screws and bastinados work 
Both Devils^ pomp and Soldans' joy ; 
And tantrums coarse in cesspools teem 
As women sob for dying men ; 
The wracks that djinnee fear and shirk, 
Are Torture's friend — A Monster's toy ! 

The rayless styes that guard the bones 
Of falFn kings and grizzled hordes, 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 45 

The mildewed screes that hold the skulls 
Of shambling spectres, wraiths, and souls, 
Now waft the spired, rasping tones 
Of risen helots, princes, lords ; 
And all up-rising mists from hulls 
That stranded on these jejune shoals, 
Evaporate when amber lights 
Cleave phantom-screens and huddles black. 
(For this each pixie sings for cheer) 
Arcadian sights then hold sway : 
Each corporal gump loves the sights— 
The hidden past (an endless track) 
Reviews each garnered Greek and year, 
Each warrior bold and lassie gay. 

Sanious lights beyond the height, 
Imbosked dysodile vaults of dwale 
As ulexite flare in the rocks 
Where implex aisles lead to gyte doom, 
Lure illaqueate Thought to flight, 
And at a Cyon, chained in stall. 



46 BETELGUESE 

Whom mad Medeas shore of locks, 

Chase Fancy's wings where hazards bloom. 

Here herculean dwangs of gold, 

Clasped in talons of Circe's son. 

Pry portals of Teocalli as, 

When hyoids blaze like sea-linkt skies, 

Incondite imps seek grovels cold, 

Unfathomed haunts that scyle each sun, 

We see above the lees green grass 

Where pixies laugh with dancing eyes, — 

King Wonder's sight that holds each heart! 

Above the rind of Ursa's wake. 

Past shadows vague and sunless suns, 

Giant visions of the cancelled past 

Rise from the void and play their part. 

Demeter floats around a lake; 

Where waters with a naiad runs, 

Hector's shot by Archilles' dart ; 

Where Orestes stabs his mother, 

Agamemnon sleeps on in cold ; 

Aegisthus robs a queen of all ; 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 47 

Andromache sobs tears of woe. 
And Clytaemenestra's lover, 
Like Menelous, is strong and bold : 
Aeneas on a burning wall 
Carries Anchises from the show. 
Then vulgar scenes stare at each soul, 
Hair-raising visions greet each eye ; 
Priam's son is dragged round ancient Troy, 
Tied fast to a chariot's tail ; 
Andromeda's doomed as Death's toll ; 
Patroclus dies with a deep sigh. 
Phyrrhus sacks Troy with a devilish joy ; 
Hecuba's nineteen sons now wail 
As Mycenae and Tiryns are burn'd : 
The Scaean Gate is storm'd by Peers ! 
Archaeans and Phrygians bold 
Have fought with Hatred's biting lust. 
Telemachus whom the Fates have spurn'd 
Finds Ulysses in twenty years ; 
Thessalian Soldans in gold, 
Like Daedalus, slept on in dust 



48 BETELGUESE 

As Penlope winged for distant zones. 
Then Syran airs held each ear: 
Bright carvels glowed with rubic wine, 
Giant cyphers flared each Lordling's name 
Within the haunts of dungeoned domes, 
Where jazels peer the eyes of Fear, 
And owls with a scorpion dine — 
Twin Monarch's play the dice's game. 

When beacons urticate each eye, 
Noctivagous ghouls haste to stroke 
Each goblin shank of hoary sage. 
Then pomp of gloom breaks into bloom, 
The Temple's arch cracks as we sigh, 
A clashing sound above that spoke 
Bhnd wrath unto each Wizard's rage, 
Revealed the chasm of stark Doom. 
Unto the peaks and gables black, 
Syrian airs like Orpheus 
Lull sequestered afrites to sleep, 
A witch smites her high biforous — 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 49 

A symbol of king Typhon's wrack ! 
Where crystal lamps shine most glorious, 
Twin legions lie in cajons bleak, — 
Tokens of Hell invidious ! 
Then fades the burnished light on high; 
Magicians stave their heads in dust, 
The vermin feed on reeking bones, 
Each gnome sobs to a green-horn'd toad. 
And monarchs of this dungeoned sky 
Untomb each son in sacred trust 
As vypers sound their rasping tones, 
Farewell the ancient Greek's abode ! 
Then spectres of the tower'd night, 
(Vultures of the sun, moon and stars) 
And bezzling parasites of dawn. 
Haunt ichnolite of mourners cold ; 
Then purple sins bloom in the light 
As vypers drive queens in bright cars ; 
Where dragons root the blistere'd lawn, 
There reigns a curdling monster bold 



50 BETELGUESE 

To scour these lanes of strobic gloom — 
Infernal doom by mongrels' wrought ! 
To pace these aisles of whistling heat, 
Eternal signs of souls gone wrong ! 
And when a skelp cleaves siffling doom, 
And vapours scyle a greenish ghaut, 
Rebellious vandals stamp their feet 
As rulling Cyons wield hell's prong. 
Then domes and walls sweat savage rage, 
Each gangrel gnome is toss'd by fear, 
The tombs provoke each inmate's keep 
To curse the horrid atmosphere, 
Where ghouls their battle-axes wage. 
Froth devils' pomp throughout the year ; 
Where lizards o'er tath do creep, 
Bivouacs a horney-fisted seer. 

To groves of wind-swept ulmus' bear, 
And siffling mists beyond a bell 
That hide veiled shadows of a peak 
Above the stationed domes of red, 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 51 

Augueries of a marching pair,— 

Twin demons of unconquer^d Hell! 

Spell visions that the soffins leak 

That felt the besom of the dead, 

Just as the Twilight's scarlet urn 

Is seen from heights unfathomed, strong. 

There runnels of green waters cold, 

Toss lepers from their murky breast; 

There venom-oils and tapers burn 

To light the way of souls gone wrong, — 

Blood-stained each idol's crown of gold 

Where battle-wrecks seek figent rest ! 

To the distant porphyry mount 
Where agate torches shine most bright, 
And syrinx's float music's charm 
O'er the jargling herds of tombed, 
A joggling javel begins to count, 
With bleary eyes of grayish light. 
The rubies on each idol's arm, 
And whisper words unto the tombed. 



52 BETELGUESE 

Now to a churning gyre's pool 

We haste to see a weird show, 

Where Lordly Helms in vials squirm, 

Each mongrel scoundrel's olpe of wine ! 

A Morgan gambles with a ghoul, 

A Belmont writhes with sizzling woe, 

A Rockefeller leads each worm. 

Another's known as T. F. Ryan. 

The browless whelp of oily fame 

Is made to dig the burning soil, 

The sheckles of a Pierpont king. 

Secures no prestige in this Inn. 

The gambling ghost whose middle name 

Is "Fortune", spins within the swirl 

Of waters cold and oceans' ring. 

Condemned, forsaken for his sin. 

On earth they plundered, robbed and stole 

From month to month and year to year; 

There Franchise-stealers cracked with leers 

As Plebeians stung, groaned with might. 

Now one and all damn'd on this shoal 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 53 

Yuck addling brains and shriek with fear, 

Now all shrink at Hell's laughing seers 

As Remorse storms the ughly night. 

Here Pat McCarrens filch no vote, 

A Grady eats no mellow pea, 

A Murphy owns no City Hall, 

No Jeromes skew at dices' song. 

On Vellum gray their sins are wrote 

To murmurs of each sullen lee, 

Racked with the wand of death and pall, 

They blast their heads as souls gone wrong. 

No presidential timber's found 

Within these caverns, pools or dung; 

No two-faced B's or bloated T's, 

Lie to laymen, vassals, hordes. 

Here politicians hear the sound 

Of ballots that their hearts have wrung, 

Of burning pyres and blister'd lees 

That scorch these one-time kings and lords. 

Here Conventions hold our eyes 

As Dragons smite a gravel dome. 



54 BETELGUESE 

The kings of Finance, skinn'd and shorn, 
Are list'ners in these halls of gloom. 
Their deeds are read, they heave giant sighs, 
Thumb-screws and wracks rake skin and bone, 
In cajons bleak, each corpse forlorn, 
Is sunk as trophies of king Doom. 
No Depews sell their patron's love, 
No faffling Platts guard treasures strong, 
No Parkers, Roots, — The crafty things ! 
Betray a country's hope and trust. 
No palm is brought them by a dove. 
No minions shant their praise in song, 
The poisoned zimbs add to the stings 
Of conscience lost and raging lust. 
Each one-time king of earthly fold 
Is skinn'd alive then cooked in oil ; 
Some frazzled Astor dames and fools 
Now eat their claws and chew a bone. 
A monarch known as Leopold, 
Writhes in a cavern's squeezing coil ; 
Here man-born helms are but the tools 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 55 

Of Satan and each prowling gnome. 
Their toes are screwed and eyes are bored, 
Their ears are shorn and lips are split, 
Each head is cracked, all tongues are cut, 
By vypers red and bloody ghouls. 
Affrighted as the dames are gored, 
Each Sybarite his teeth doth grit, 
The huddled pirates in a hut, 
Shriek help unto the roaring pools. 
And moaning airs their sorrows tell 
That some unfathomed force hath bred. 
Night-hawks rasp sins of women, men. 
Who sold their honour, soul and name. 
And tower'd screes that pierce giant hell 
Are treasure-houses for the dead: 
Each rich man writhes within a den, 
Society dames proclaim their shame. 
And offal, shard and putrid dung, 
Is by affluent daughters born. 
When in the ribboned mists above 
A beacon flares and torches burn, 



56 BETELGUESE 

A Soldan from green earth is hung ; 
His heartless queen is cursed, forsworn, 
Their souls house neither hope nor love 
Within Damnation's burning urn. 
Repress'd with hate and unspent rage 
As charnel howls clash in each hall, 
Each gyving hydra rends the air 
With curses, hawps as rambling souls. 
Lured by a grizzled warrior sage. 
Storm moats before each bristling wall 
And die as imps are bade to swear — 
Infernal trophies of these shoals ! 
Immingled dreams their senses storm 
As Westward shadows cloak each lee; 
Where censers blaze they drag their limbs, 
These cursed, forsaken whelps of hell! 
Their ghastly sins on vellum's sworn. 
Attested, sealed, they bend each knee ! 
Where devils rant blood-curdling hymns, 
A raving wench drowns in a well. 
Unto the coals of fevered pyres 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 57 

That glare like carcants red and white ; 

And glowing rubies in the dust 

That lure each man-born skink and whelp, 

The spastic cries and moaning sighs 

Attest to Typhon's weird dight, — 

And Satan's ichor of green lust, 

Provokes the lashing heat and skelp. 

Within the cathedral vaults of gloom, 
The gorgeous pomp of the flayed, 
In banded gold and marble flesh, 
Speak of auguries to the damn'd, 
Till, when censers' lights flare and bloom, 
And shapes of men are laid arrayed 
In gomes of steel, we tred the mesh 
And grandeur of a conjured stand, 
Where coral wreathes each hussy's brow, 
Whose broken arms portray hell's lust, 
Of whistling winzes, syrt and domes 
That gleaming broths in anger wrought, 
'Mid hiss of snakes and oils. So now. 



58 BETELGUESE 

When plundered tombs betray their trust, 
And vandals screech at roving gnomes, 
All raise a voice and curse each ghaut. 

Beyond the ring and roll of hell— 

And spiral lofts of quartz and gold — 

We skirr upon the crutch of haste 

And cleave the abyss, cold and bleak. 

There jejune fossils lie to tell 

Of pleiocene days' garnered fold; 

Gray bones that pierce this weird waste 

Lie mounted on a torrid peak; 

Principalities of the past, 

Lie scatter'd in the mildewed dust; 

Serai's built in ages gone, 

Now crumble at a sound, a voice. 

And Boulders that the Djinnee cast 

As Vengeance swirl'd the healed dust, 

Now rock as devils rasp a son. 

And vampyres dance round and round. 

And where a dim, unstudded dome 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 59 

Leak odours strong and palsied light — 
Twins of the Gloom ! as some mad soul 
Assails Typhon^s battUng walls, 
A glowing fire of this home 
Of deadly dews and poisoned night, 
Bathes monstrous this untower^d shoal. 
Convulsed with fear as aisles and halls 
Roar like giant cauldrons mad for gore, 
Icarian gumps and devils bold, 
Assault each marshalled mount and scree. 
Then spectacles greet us again 
Upon this shadowed, foreign shore: 
A ponderous dwang of virgin gold. 
Is filched from altars that we see. 
Just as the tomb-sweats pour like rain. 
And distant ghauts where jazels burn, — 
(A burning tomb where hissing oils 
Drip on a flayed and bottled wench 
That some abhorrent spawn of death 
Filched from the wrack of Terror's urn 
As stagnent breath unwinds its coils) 



60 BETELGUESE 

Spout uncoped shard unto a bench 

Where sights of men-wrecks gasp for breath, 

Whilst quickly from a bowelless whelp 

Drop ghastly stones of scarlet hue 

That brazen imps hurl thro' the air 

At sobbing wraiths and furrowed souls, 

Wrought by a fiend and conjured skelp 

As men and women hold a pew 

Within a turgid, acrid lair, — 

Infernal aisles of yawning shoals ! 

T'ward cyphers bright and terrible, 
Where Doom sits poised as Satan yawns, — 
Each Vulture's home and arid shoal ! 
We hurl a curse and damn the hordes 
That call each monster horrible. 
Then craftily he moves his pawns 
(Whenas a moan escapes each soul) 
As bleary sons of noble lords 
Sway twin censers' fumes in silence. 
Until in myrtle groves we see 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 61 

A blazing arch where agate eyes 

Doth peer mahgnly from a crypt 

Thro' turbid phials of violence, — 

A scene of impish sorcery ! 

Where, in furbished chambers there lies — 

As vypers write on evil script 

The ghastly deeds that sinners wrought— 

A glow-worm's fagot that arrays 

Dim shapes of souls of men that were. 

And cyphers nights of doomes to be, 

Till flaring pyres and yon red ghaut — 

So monstrous bright that some one prays— 

And Vizy's carvel starts to stir, 

Shape abhorrent signs on each lee. 

Into the dusky coals we peer, 
And musing at the luring flames, 
We watch each isle of crystal green. 
Anear the billows swirl with rage, 
'Mid lashing waves that cope king Fear 
To strands and sands where elfin games 



62 BETELGUESE 

Make rich each midnight's fleecy dream 
That some Mad wandering, goblin sage, 
Provoked from coffers of each brain, 
Gleam in each tossing breast of foam. 
Or shines from purple decks and domes 
A ruddy carcant huge and large; 
Or, when sea-linkt clouds, garbed in rain. 
And behemoths sink to briny home, 
A star that shines from foreign zones 
Guide carvels old and Satan's barge 
O'er blue profounds of the deep, 
And gladden souls of men; yet, stunned, 
Tho' trembling, to a roaring mouth, 
A horn'd magician locked in death. 
On whom two hectic harlots peep, 
Sinks in abyssal depths unsummed. 
Whilst him he fought hastes to the South,- 
A hoary fiend of rasping breath ! 

And now we watch a maiden flee, 
Past seas and ice-mounts oriflammed 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 63 

With crystal diamonds red and bright, 
Where Persephone hath breathed a jem, 
And frozen jazels that we see, 
AHfe with lusts of curst and damn'd, 
Tho' windblown, thro' the moonless night, 
She wanders with her anadem 
On golden hair; nor doth she haste 
When scarlet eyes peer thro' the snow. 
But cavern^d mouths of grottoes black. 
And storm-swept flight of dragons bold, 
She passes as she treads the waste, 
Off to the haunts of ghoullish show. 
Where fires writhe and whispers track 
Her wake unto the peaks of cold. 
Above whose tower'd dome she sees 
The tombs of father, mother, all; 
Ay, now weeps she as the head-stones 
Letter large, her unburied kin. 
Now with her trembling arms and knees, 
And back against the slimmy wall. 
She vents her tears and choking moans, 



64 BETELGUESE 

A daughter cursed within this Inn. 
And witches long for ease, so, 
Erelong they peer at waters green 
That pour in forges dank and cold, 
Whence glare the eyes of Hell in lust 
As Cyclops stem the pyre's glow, 
'Mid haunts of sin and purple sheen 
Of shales and husks of monsters told 
As vultures to both scale and dust. 
Then wing they for the western strands 
Of bowered vales and lulling dells. 
Where silence holds the winds at bay, 
And myrtles stir the sylvan air. 
There towers and the russet sands 
Make fine the tunes of ringing bells 
That echo to the skies of gray, 
Where phosphorescent lanterns flare. 
And twilights of the lofty aisles, 
Thro' silver mists and streaks of blood, 
Crucifixion looms cold and white; 
Oaths of prurient blasphemy 



^ TRIP THROUGH HELL 65 

Echo to the sequestered isles; 
An ivory pyx that rides the flood 
On which fantasms spin their light, 
Curse each soul's eternal enemy. 
Within a pool where writhing coils 
Shape cyphers bold and gorey thought, — 
Two shadowed sklayres of Doom and Set ! 
The foam-dreams of the newly dead 
Ascend. To hazards that the oils 
Eschewed, haste dryades that were taught 
To dance. And, whilst all souls forget 
The chasms deep and oriflammed, 
The spastic lights of a green room. 
Dim torches show the jeweled tombs 
Wherein are hid the studded crowns 
Of Eastern queens; or, when high-bred 
Dames pick from Death's unbroken womb 
The coral wreaths and poppy blooms. 
Two priestesses in scarlet gowns 
Curse loudly as the royal dead 
Are strewn with palmy leaves and dyes. 



66 BETELGUESE 

And crimsons adders on the hulls, 
Search for toadstools smeared with blood. 
And livid lamps where vypers spoon, 
As some bad harlot shrieks and cries 
Her Nature's sins unto three skulls, 
A shameless gnome bathes in hell's flood 
The thighs he filched from a gray tomb. 

Drawn by the whispers from the wind, 
'Mid glories of the hollowed night, 
To storm-swept vales and mounts we haste, 
And, in monastic halls we see, 
Above a greenish gyrus rind, 
The flick'ring flames of a light, 
Beneath whose subtle, shadowed waste 
Squat men and women that would flee 
The ghastly words from Vellum told. 
Who pluck their eyes and pull their hair, — 
Beneath their feet there writhes a worm ! 
As bludgeons smite a leering soul. 
And when a wench that Satan sold 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 67 

To some old seer, whose head is bare, 

And oily snakes in cauldrons squirm, 

All blast the sight and curse this shoal, — 

Infernal land of Sin and Doom ! 

Eternal moans and sighs we hear; 

A swarthy demon laughs with glee. 

Then, thickly from a ghastly hole 

The turbid dyes of blood doth bloom 

From minxes bold, crouched with giant fear, 

Provoke a sage who could not see, 

With feelings for her impeached soul. 

Low arches of a charnel house. 
Above whose dome two demons sit, 
That guard the lamps of fateful red. 
Veiled whispers from a maiden's soul 
Cleave skyward until they arrouse 
A savage hound of hell with script 
That holds her body's deeds. A-bed, 
He peers thro' shades unto her shoal. 
Then at his tome where sijis are wrote 



68 BETELGUESE 

Of wifes that sold their names in lust, 
Or men that worshipped naught but gold» 
And, when stillness holds troubled sway, 
A baneful imp that Conscience smote. 
Rasps names of those bowed in the dust: 
And, when thus their sins are foretold. 
As kinsmen strike their beasts and pray, 
A livid gasp permeates the air, 
A curdling curse assails the night. 
And squats, whose scarlet venom crawls 
To lantern's-glow that tell the guilt 
Of battling demons as they swear. 
Malignly dumb below each light 
That scyle the bloody walls and halls, 
The life-ebb from a wench is spilt. 
The phosphorescent fungus-lights 
Are traitors* lamps that sorrows hide; 
The foam-sprayed beaches that we see, 
Are treasure-houses for the damn'd. 
From year to year infernal nights 
Rasp shoals a thousand furlongs wide; 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 69 

In ev'ry zone, each distant lee, 
Holds ghastly sights of burning sand. 
The headlands that we reach by day, 
About whose shore the dragons roam; 
And mildewed vaults of gathered bone, 
Where eyeless skulls and ape-shanks lie 
As moaning winds reel to and sway 
From gorey pools and tower'd dome, 
A goggling wraith and shambling gnome 
Doth forage for each fleeing sigh. 

Now Sorrow that the Dooms crowned King, 
Flees from the mouth of pools inflame, 
Whilst Lords in robes of scarlet hue, 
Add to the damn'd, malignant show; 
Pellicles that all eyes did sting 
In Vengeance's law that none could tame, 
Flees whence two lights of dreaming blue 
Cleave dome-thrown shadows dress'd in woe. 

A Thaumaturgist, cursed and damn'd, 



70 BETELGUESE 

Raps skulls from which a venom pours, 
And shakes his fists where opals burn, 
Whence figgum that his hands control 
Is charged with life; and on the sand 
Two witches sate their thirst in gores, 
Flit Fancy's wings unto a urn, 
(Within whose tomb there writhes a soul) 
And with Courage that Dawn hath bred 
In rivers, to whispers of the night. 
As wracks are dyed a crimson red, 
Feasts upon Doom's abhorrent shape, 
That fires bright, toss to each bed, 
And flees to realms where shadows light; 
Whilst Thought, in horror of the dead. 
Wings in mourning veils, dark rs crepe, 
And feasts on afterglow of Trust, 
On cauldrons tossed to crafty Death 
That froths dank pomp and guidons bright, 
Unto a height, where falt'ring eyes. 
Betrayed by crystals numb in dust. 
Gasps at the sight with startled breath 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 71 

As vapours green, war with the light, 
Faint as the sunset's golden dyes. 
All mounts of bone are tombs of weal, 
Each scree, a temple of king Doom; 
And runnels that the suns do shun, 
Are pools where offal reeks most strong 
And thro' the air giant wasps do reel; 
On barriers bleak, reptiles soom; 
A Vulture that no shard can stun 
Gawks at the multitudes gone wrong. 

Where waters with the venom crawls 

To oriels, where banners float 

Beside a dome-thrown surf of blood 

T'ward letters large, that Hell hath wrought, 

Worm-like vapours skirr thro' the halls 

And reach a distant, lurid moat. 

Where sighs and groans upon a flood 

Ascend to heights of a grey ghaut — 

Satellites to Destiny's crypt ! 

And Vespers that the Twilight brought — 



12 BETELGUESE 

More dooms that prayers nor sighs can break — 

Leer at each thought to Fancy's flight; 

And to the dais whereunder sit 

A demon-quire that Circe taught, 

Songs that echo to the isles in lake 

And valley deep, ravage the night 

Until Idols pall at the scene. 

And stationed Mounts toward the West 

Whose bones portray a ghastly lust; 

And skulls that glare at the soulless night, 

Point, vv^eeping, where the foam-waves dream: 

All battle-wrecks and imps haste forth 

Unto the phosphorescent dust 

And pyramidal shoals of light. 

The poisons that the geysers spit 

To apes, where Sin in splendor reigns; 

And cavern'd shapes that shadows hide 

Behind tapers, where snarling Doom 
Glares at Set's tomb, where devils sit, 
Make vague signs to the weird flames, 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 73 

Flit spastic breath to regions wide 

And shrood each shrunken soul with gloom. 

Where glozing parasites hold sway, 

Seek rivers dry reveal the bones 

Of ages that the Cyclops slew: 

Onyx thrones that the Titans stormed 

Lie in obfuscating decay; 

Eyeless skulls that abhorrent gnomes 

Wield in hands that reek with the dew 

That solemn Death in tombs hath worm'd, 

Stare at the scene as willows sigh: 

And tapers of the Mount's crown'd witch 

(Whenas each carcant fades from view) 

Seek shadows that the tombs have cast 

Upon the conjured, wind blown sky, 

Where Syrian altar-lamps make rich 

The palace-domes whereon the dew 

Sits like a star and beams upon the vast, 

Phantasmagoric glory of Death, 

Of godly helms housed in a crypt. 

And where a livid beacon flares — 



74 BETELGUESE 

(A rock that somevgiant storm hath split) 
In mourning robes and rasping breath, 
Before a grave where devils sit, 
A Queen at whom a lizard stares, 
Sobs her grief and woe that tears writ 
Deep into the phorphyrj mount: 
This, then, is Deaths home, vale and Tomb! 
Where Lancers, made equal with the dust 
When revolt storm'd each kingdom's fold, 
And clashing wars spun Hecate round 
The pungent halls of spastic Doom; 
When in each Nation fought king Lust 
As siffling vapours gleamed like gold, 
Ten legions whom the gods forsook 
Wrought havoc on this Cauldron^s shore: 
Then Dragon-guidons led the march 
As battle-axes smote vile Lords; 
Stout hears that with king Vengeance shook, 
Fought with valour's shield for more gore; 
Assaults that rasped each Temple's arch, 
Spake conquest o'er shambling hordes. 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 75 

This tale on ghastly Vellum's writ, 
More sypher'd woes the walls proclaim; 
Where goblins fondle crumbling bones, 
There hes a death-thrown monster cold. 
Perturbed at writings on yon script 
As moaning airs gaunt Sorrows name. 
Each ape attests in faffling tones — 
Flight to the Dragons' haunted fold. 
Affrighted at this fearful gaze 
As coals blaze like twinkling jewels. 
Night-hawks that croak at bat-faced owls 
Gledge at each gnome that digged a bone 
From some bleak pool, and pierce the haze 
Where censers blaze. Unconquered ghouls 
Who laugh and leer at demon howls, 
Make signs unto the hell-lashed foam — 
Japes that the damn'd fear in each knell! 

Where jargling javels stab a toad. 
And mutter swift, as vypers swear; 
And spectres that the cauldrons wrought, 



76 BETELGUESE 

Glare at the storm-swept sins that tell 
Of monsters that the night-winds rode 
When bloody plumes stole to a lair 
Beyond the confines of a ghaut. 
And spacious halls where vagrants lie — 
Vandals to the Dawn, Night and Dusk ! 
And vulpine labyrinths of hell 
Where pirates of a star are thron'd 
As dews cloak bones that pierce the sky, 
Wowed witches with a gorce's lust 
When vales list to a clanging bell 
That some encharnel'd hybrid domed, 
Sweats cesspools with the pall of fear. 
Shrill sounds permeate the barren air, 
Each shatter'd light before a well, 
Ends its flame in short, spastic gasps. 
And stars that burn but once a year, 
(Veined Aureoles to altars where. 
When sins are told unto each knell 
As chanting runes are hushed with clasps 
Of winds provoked by black-set night, 



^A TRIP THROUGH HELL 77 

Peer at the caravans in prayer; 
A dirge is sung by magicians; 
Each Idol squints eyes at the show, 
Whilst goblins curse the eerie sight. 
And Betelguese, an evil lair 
With infernal, warring legions, 
Careens as stars shed tears of woe. 

Arcadia, its pleasing name. 

An Eden where the damn'd drink wine, 

Where rich fetes greet each varlet's eye, 

Each gyving hound whom Fates have doomed: 

Each scyphus veils a burning flame; 

A blood-stone from each dome doth shine 

On poisons that in goblets lie. 

Bred by sorcerers, cursed and tombed. 

Then Terrors, Horrors, reign supreme! 

Each vial squat before the spread, 

Leer at toads in goblets crossed. 

Froth skinks within each feaster's glass. 

Wine changed to blood, then acrid green. 



78 BETELGUESE 

A drunken villain who was bled 
As drink his convulsed entrails tossed, 
Writhes with the cramps upon the grass 
And glares at the face of his god, 
Whose wrinkled skin, in ghastly wrath, 
Provoked at this son in revolt. 
Rants his spleen to the slabs of Doom, 
From whence gyte monsters with a rod, 
That oft gave imps a bloody bath, 
Hythe, and before their master halt; 
And, then came unhung, battling gloom ! 
The dome cracked like a clashing star, 
All lights were muffled in a shroud, 
Wild winds that cought us in their fold, 
Dashed wrecks unto a reeking zone. 
In Thralldom's grasp we waged giant war, 
The storms rasped at each, cursing crowd, 
From regions far there sprung a cold 
That froze each hoodlum stuck in loam. 
There, garbed in the wastes of a moat, 
Gangrel witches scan the slime to curse 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 79 

Beneath a dome and shatter'd light, 
A sign that all are lost and doomed. 
Toward jagged heights black oaths float, 
To skies of jasper light, adverse 
To Doom's rich fold, prayers reach thro' night 
That some malignant monster tombed 
In phantom-blankets stark and bold. 
All mountain-chasms growl and roar; 
Each ocean froths black waves of lust; 
King Thunder rasps the trembling night; 
Giant lightnings spHt their fevered hold; 
Encharneled guilt hastes to this shore 
As hydras squirm along the dust, 
Affrighted at this Cauldron's sight. 

For we are unsubstantial wrecks 

Beyond the pale of scale and fin; 

Adventurers tossed by king Time 

In region 'neath supernal skies. 

To dungeoned knells where venom specks 

The robes of priestesses with sin^ 



80 BETELGUESE 

And prowling apes get drunk with wine, 
We turn each thought to coral eyes 
That seas have blurred with coffined night. 
And whisper deeds wrought in silence. 
A quiver that the tomb-sweat bore 
When walls were split with Typhon's ire; 
And monstrous shapes that carved the light 
As dragon-worms brought pestilence 
To souls who grovel on this shore, 
Proclaim each gyving djinnee sire. 
And dryades whom the mists have struck 
With ague — A Sceptre of Despair ! 
(Sklayres to the night, and suns unstunned) 
Dank dulse, where templed vaults of man, 
Coarse-grained, who gambled with king Luck, 
'Mid pulse of life below the air, 
Shake at the throb of this unsummed 
Sphere, where haunted thoughts and dreams 

scan 
Athward at a untower'd home. 
Where vitals that the glow-worm lit— 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 81 

Friends to the Doom ! as sorrowed soui, 
Repress'd with rage, knelt down and prayed, 
Rise from the hollowed void a moan 
As sins upon papyrus, writ 
In vyper's blood — Jems in this shoal ! 
Confess'd by men whom friends have flayed, 
Teem in the wind-swept, shatter'd strands — 
Blind batter'd keels that know no rebt 
'Mid surge of moans that tombs have spilt. 
Upon the air that Doom hath wrung, 
Beyond the fields where numberless hands 
Point to the headland of the West, 
Lights and vague shadows spell no guilt 
Unto the wraiths whom Torpor stung. 
And all night-thoughts in this strange sphere^ 
Tred in the skirts of waters cold. 
Of hell-winds that the beaches swirl 
Dome-high within this shrunken realm; 
And crested billows toss giant Fear 
Unto each culprit's hidden fold: 
The studded roof where flares a pearl, 



82 BETELGUESE 

The charnel vapours o'erwhelm. 

In caverns where gyte jinnee lee — 
Noctivagous lepers in the gloom — 
Unhollowed regions wrapped in light 
Where groans are drowned by revels coarse 
(Seen by a gump throughout the year 
Above the strife where horrors soom) 
Lurk crafty gnomes who with the night 
Rant oaths in voices cracked and hoarse: 
Blood-thirsty jinn in essling caves, 
Where rubic dyes tinge Torture's dome, 
And vypers' whispers pierce the night 
As ghouls — whose baneful eyes conspire 
With the surge of hell's roaring waves — 
Rear mounts of bone — Dame Sorrow's home ! 
As charnel scarn parades in light — 
Unfathomed crafts rayed in wowed attire. 
And dusky mists peer at the show, 
Obtest the gloom to further deeds 
Of haste, to Horror's added might; 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 83 

Tho' twilight-witches spill their gloom, 
(Betelguese's priestesses of woe) 
Abhorrent gawks lure in the reeds 
Where shatter'd lights wing sudden flight, 
'Mid spun-waves kiss'd by poppy bloom. 

Dank dulse, and rushing waters cold; 
Eternal signs of shadowed night 
Beyond the zephyr-haunted space 
Of adequate lees 'neath the sky: 
Unfathomed haunts of stark souls bold 
That squat on waves of darkest dight, 
Malignly mute as foam-waves race 
To pyres where men in torture lie. 
When thrones are levelled to the dust, 
And glories fade in cauldrons tossed, 
'Mid waters vaster than the night 
In scarlet tombs that rasp grim Death, 
Supernal selves, loosed from king Lust 
As Dissolution bulwarks crossed. 
Conviction of an undreamt might 



84 BETELGUESE 

Assail each mongrel afrite's breath. 
Hushed gasps permeate the solemn air 
As coral Twilight flaunts its sheen, 
And vapours wreath phantastic forms 
Till vaulted domes glow like the noon. 
Vague dreams plague souls beyond repair, 
Phantoms, black demons call their queen, 
Skinks and owls whom no conscience storms 
Make faces at the leprous moon. 
And bleak dungeons dank with odours 
Strong, within each encrusted gyre, 
'Mid treasure-vaults digged by gray Age, 
Affronting witches incense burn; 
And howling ghouls gape thro' vapours. 
Two sifBing vampyres dance on fire, 
Each mottled sage a conquered page 
To him whose hate no Doom can turn, 
No bat-faced gnome can stem the blaze: 
Hence harlots, ghastly with giant sin, 
Chant runes to him in strobic gloom 
As figgum's plied before his throne. 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 85 

Malignly mute, he peers thro' haze; 
Infernal paeons shake each Inn, 
Blue lights 'twixt opals burn and bloom 
In deep-hued haunts of Typhon^s home. 

In vain we seek an isle of peace 

Beyond the pale of siffling Doom ! 

'Mid stillness vaster than the tomb, 

Made equal with the ghouls who lurk 

On battlements where witches ease 

Their minds as rubic censers fume, 

A Fiend bubbles in ruddy bloom 

As turgid dyes the night-dwales shirk. 

No sunsets crimson this stained sea, 

No Ev'ntides her plume unfolds; 

An opaque light that Silence wrought. 

Careens thro' space in quest of toll. 

Then demons storm each sea and lee, 

Abhorrent sights each Cauldron holds, 

Dim shapes flit to the distant ghaut 

Where Doom sits poised — Each monster's goal ! 



86 BETELGUESE 

Erelong the air shakes with a roar — 
Forebodings of souls on Death's dome ! 
Bright cyphers spell the new-damned name 
In letters 'gainst a leprous home: 
Oaths peel like the hammer of Thor — 
The screaming thing is flayed to bone ! 
Its sins— an outraged Body's shame — 
Laid bare as whipcords dye the foam, 
Whereon nepheloid imps and night, 
Soom on with tidings of a moan, 
Of dews, and whisper'd groans and sighs. 
And, as vague forms writhe in despair, 
A native in phantastic dight 
Stills Torture's hold in weazened tone. 
Black incense lifts its wand and flies 
To haunts where mattoids rave and swear. 

Where figent gawks sken at a gnome, 
Decked in byssin and beads of gold; 
And glozing jinn on a scree's height, 
That leer as geysers boil and flow, 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 87 

Feazing imps on serai's dome, 
Drink from olpes icy philters cold, 
Whilst scarn assails the morning light — 
And gumps haste to the Dawn's first show. 
Then pyres don mystic sklayres agleam, 
A faffling fool leads gawks thro' hall 
Where fays, in stones of ancient art, 
Dance as Scorpions shake with glee: 
Infernal pomps spread tawny sheen, 
Strange figgum^ amid unholy pall, 
Pierce Sorrows with its poisoned dart 
Whence horrors shake their limbs and flee. 
And scenes, profound in Aspect's hue, 
Play havoc with eyes of each soul: 
Crimson dales (vague tho' they be) 
And swards rise from the lurid moat; 
Knees bend in Adoration's pew, 
Blithe songs of cheer, far and near, roll 
Thro' the halls to ebony sea, 
Above whose breast twin whispers float — 
Tremendous signs of dooms to be ! 



88 BETELGUESE 

And, ere falt'ring noon wings itself 
To shadow peaks and portals bright 
That scyle veiled augueries of Hell, 
An agate light arrays this sea. 
Each glabrous fay sports with an elf, 
A one-eyed owl blinks at the light, 
A green-horned toad croaks from a well. 
Then pageantries fade in the gloom: 
'Mid Cyclopean storms unstunned 
Dank treasure-houses spill their quest 
And march with thunder from far West; 
Whilst lightning flashes skirr the noon, 
Giant moans ascend from shoals unsunned, 
The turf, Tartarus' coals of rest — 
Helots to the haunts of Sin's crest- 
Whereon jimp jinn ride to hell's mouth. 
The silence stir with oaths of might; 
Vile dragons roar at a zimb's sting; 
A swarthy gump leers at the damn'd: 
All soom to mountains of the South 
Where sultry winds war with the light, 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 89 

And zanies' voices rise to sing, 

Hosannah to the idol's stand, 

Where azure-censers' fumes enhance 

The pomps, adverse to Sorrow's home. 

Figent hydras squat on each throne, 

Mute souls peer at the altar's flame 

As phantom images do dance 

In honour of this Hybrid's zone. 

Bred in this gorce by some strange gnome, 

Sib to him who plays Satan's game. 

A Cesspool vext with leprous stench 
And oils— A sign that spells a curse ! 
Visioned with Temples' diamonds bright 
In domes as guide to those whose cry 
Of fear, sprung from a wench's bench, 
Lure all to this strange shore, adverse 
To moonlit skies. By the ghaut's light, 
(Ten-thousand furlongs wide and high) 
The gaud, spun from sorcerers' art, 
Reveals its part unto each soul — 



90 BETELGUESE 

Imperishable signs of groans 

That time nor cyclones can eschew. 

No lulling lanes point to a mart, 

No tidings good their billows roll; 

In fretful haunts where Sorrow moans, 

Swarm souls in Penance's rasping pew: 

Disastrous sights of Torture's dome ! 

Red-embered coals that burn their feet \ 

And reeking pools, vile with odours, 

Make monstrous this blood-crimson vale. 

Where demon-lovers chew a bone 

As men and women choak in heat, 

And blood-veined sights writhe in vapours — - 

Eternal shadows in each gale ! 

To groves where stiliness sat supreme, 

Flee seers in quest of lagging rest: 

To regions where giant echos roar. 

Haste begotten sons in this lair: 

There man-born wrecks lie down and dream 

Of sea-winds that foam-billows bless'd. 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 91 

Of auric realms where censers pour 
Violaceous fumes thro' the air. 
And in the deep-hued depths of gore, 
(Blind bowels in Betelguese's hold) 
Gyte vandals that a Dragon bore 
Sleep with one eye as Midnight rules 
These sons of Circe whom pyres adore; 
Their thoughts vie with the luring fold, 
Each sleepless orb glares like a boar — 
Infernal hounds of shambling ghouls ! 
Porphyry mounts where crystals glare — 
Twin carcants strung on idols' thighs 
Whereon stones, blaze like fire bright, 
And moonstones add their silver sheen, 
A Circean draught, boiled in the air, 
Is poured on cippus where Set lies; 
Where vanquished Soldans sleep each night, 
A greenish fungus-torch doth gleam. 
Giant battles have been fought in hell, 
Principalities rot in dust. 
The tombs of kings speak of the past 



92 BETELGUESE 

When Incubi reigned with a rod. 
Unnumbered bones adorn each dell — 
Where Rulers lie there stands a bust; 
Blood-stained the hands of him whose task 
Is blasting varlets like a god. 
And when some spirit stalks thro^ space 
In quest of vaults — Temporal lees ! 
Treads in the grandeur of dank hell, 
A batter'd shape that shakes its frame, 
Spacious regions Courage chase, 
Winds drive it to Misery's seas, 
Laughs ascend from sequestered well, 
Thro' shadows vague it hears its shame. 
And tomb-thrown groans and sighs we hear — 
Tho' midnight's near and afrite's sleep: 
An Owl, perturbed at some strange sound, 
Scares bats in space and wings for domes. 
All signs of woe hath flown with fear. 
No maidens heave their breasts and weep, 
All wrecks of Flesh He on the ground, 
Removed from shoals where Terror moans. 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 93 

On skulls that some in Death hath left, 
Croak toads to lizards in a well; 
In cajons that the Ancient's digged, 
Swim snakes that hiss at burning oils: 
And bats and owls that offal cleft. 
Proclaim their burdens to a dell, 
Whilst crafts that some strange witch hath 

rigged, 
Bring slaves unto this Cesspool's coils. 

When carcants gleam like scarlet foam. 
And hiss of pyres froth at each light 
In dongas vext as jazels flare 
From spUnter'd tombs of Kings in dust, 
A stragghng mist that cleft Hell's dome, 
Peers at the gloom and strobic sight 
Of charnel shard as vypers blare 
Wrathfully at each Monarch's bust. 
And doleful dirges rake the gloom, 
A whisper'd sin sobs at the wrecks; 
Graven imps clasp papyrus old 



94 BETELGUESE 

And rant each Body's deeds of shame. 
Come from a dank and sunken womb 
All stranded ghouls on keels and decks 
Where Cyclops fought as Vellum told 
In cyphers bright, sprung from each flame, 
Make hideous eyes at the night. 
And terrors that Tartarus bred 
Assail each kingdom treblefold: 
A gangrel clan that someone flayed, 
Skirr thro' the dungeoned halls in flight 
And seek the caverns of the dead. 
Where tapers gleam like virgin gold 
The tombs of dead queens are arrayed: 
There, too, a witch unfurls her cowl 
And scans the shambling hordes to curse, 
And with the light that cyclones split, 
She juggles secrets of her lust, 
And hurls her voice at N^phele's owl, 
Past portals dark, where harlots nurse 
Their skinless limbs that Torture bit, 
And stamps her feet into the dust 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 95 

As, into olpes she pours a tear: 
And, musing at the clouds of gloom, 
She wrinkles face and lifts her hands 
To mutter words unto the night. 
Whereon a ghoul-king hath writ Fear, 
And changes gloom to purple bloom, 
The shoals to opal-sanded strands 
That reach, past wrecks to crystal light, 
Where mossy vales with poppies bloom, 
And hastes her flight from Terror's urn, 
To onyx seas where agates glow, 
And feats her eyes on woes of hell, 
Upon the foam-dreams of king Doom, 
Where monsters in red cauldrons burn, 
'Mid shrieks that from their vitals flow 
With airs that rasp each bone-strewn delL 
And sea-linkt skies of charnel black — 
A savage dome ! streaked scarlet red, 
Where maids for demon lovers mourn ; 
And caskets spew a dusky foam 
That quench the thirst of yon lone wrack 



96 BETELGUESE 

That holds the sultry, naked dead, 
Who caught the eyes of waves forlorn, 
Now bathed in blood in Hecate's home. 

There garnet wrought and purple lights 
Shine thro' poisoned vials of age 
On churning pomps of casements old, 
Where, when lofty aisles and halls 
Ring rich with tenor runes in nights 
Made solemn by a hoary sage 
With darkhng eyes that gleam like gold, 
A prowling vandal storms the walls, 
Nursed with dank venom broths and oils, 
A blood-shot minx hunts for a man; 
In stys and broken pyxs she peers 
For him who ruined her honour, soul; 
A harlot doomed in clinging coils 
That now her longings curse and damn. 
Squats on a skull and pulls her ears: 
Or, just when she finds her Hfe-goal,— 
A cow'ring cur hid from the sight 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 97 

Beneath a putrid mount of bone, 

And tombs grow dank as rising sun 

Makes red each dragon in the West, 

She splits his heart and rasps with might, 

A curse that rides the surging foam, 

A message that this dastard son 

Dies longing for a fatal quest — 

Surcease of soul and conscience lost ! 

Then rants she sins unto each tomb 

That sweat the lusts of those in dust, 

And scarlet foam and hiss of oils 

That her black deed to domes hath tossed, 

Break into writhing life and bloom 

As iron crowns and ceptres rust 

Of falTn monarchs crossed in coils. 

Anear, two carcants glare like gold ; 

Afar, a ruby's light of red 

Straggles thro' the pellicled mist, 

And to its vinewed dell haste I, 

To catch the fleeting whispers told 

To marble-lamps and head-stones, said, 



98 BEThLGUESE 

By demon-husbands as I list, 
To hold each mongrel harlot's sigh. 
There, then, in tatter'd rags and hair, 
Coarse-grained of features once so fine, 
She spews her 'evil wrath and rage 
Into the wriggling hands and face 
Of him who lifts his voice to swear 
A curse that stirs the air, whose time 
(Tho' to king Satan speeds a page) 
Hath come as Vengeance wins the race. 
When crimson skies and stellor eyes 
Swathed palace domes and turrets strong, 
Her lips kiss'd mine, and mine did hers, 
Ere evil smote her virgin soul. 
And livid lights of bleeding dyes 
(Whenas she prods him with her prong) 
Make terrible her words so terse 
That brands this scoundrel on this shoal. 
And mutt'ring quick a ghastly oath 
As turgid mists veil shadows vague, 
She plucks his lying tongue that stole 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 99 

Her husband's love and honour old, 

And smites him stark and cold, tho' loath, 

It peers to me her demon-ague 

That binds her to this perjured soul, 

She drinks his gore from carvels cold 

And leers with fiendish lips at him, 

Now tossed in phosphorescent holes. 

And as I list to aspen cries. 

Veiled augueries in vapours hie 

And spell these tokens to each Inn: 

Kingdoms, empires, nations, souls, 

Shall miss the haunts of Paradise, 

And in Subjection, crumbling, lie. 

And when the regions, wrapped in light 

By pillared dreams and pomps supreme 

As curses stir the charnel air 

That hide dank caverns deep and bold, 

A battling monster smites the night 

As lepers wink their orbs and dream 

Of maidens that the men forswear. 

Of templed vaults now stiff in cold. 



100 BETELGUBSE 

And when a dim, unholy tomb, 

Wreathes odours damp and vapours strong 

Heirs of the Doomed ! as savage domes 

Drip palsied sweat and carnal howls 

Assail the stationed halls of gloom. 

Where imps and devils march along 

Beside a monarch's crumbling bones 

As witches don their filthy cowls 

And rant their sins thro' whistling halls, 

Shake women fists at fleeing souls 

And wail for b^tard children dead; 

Whilst quickly from the burning dust 

Ascends an oath that storms the walls 

And rasps the distant mounts and shoals 

Until each pyre glows scarlet red, 

Each idol leers with wicked lust. 

Forth from rubies flare scented fumes 

As beacons glare and bubbles hiss 

To crimson strands and altars' glow 

Of burning oils in carvels deep, 

Where; when Torture's bloody dome looms 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 101 

Cold as shambling shapes of men kiss 
Trembling women before the show, 
Wraiths point to where their daughters weep. 

To lie in vaults and chambers cold 
'Mid tombs that ghouls in hatred wrought ! 
To sleep in dank Subjection's shard 
'Mid hanuts of purple sins and shales. 
A Thirst gyre ! as bleak, untold, 
As ever haunted woman sought 
For incubi on scented sward 
As bleary owls and vulpine wails 
Rake stationed nights and seas forlorn, 
Until, when star-linkt domes are red. 
And Oceans' shells and sands grow white, 
Dusky isles and lights — Twins of the Gloom! 
Betray each soul cursed and forsworn ; 
Or awed, at Twilights* scarlet bed, 
When nightshades blot the conjured light 
As javels vomit death and doom, 
Dank vapours veil the seaward flighi 



102 BETELGUESE 

Of Satellites gray 'gainst the night, 
Till, eyes in fear peer at profounds 
Unfathomed and, in vales unsunned, 
See Cyclops battling in the light, 
'Mid scarlet foam and gorey sight 
Of bloody domes and hybrid hounds 
Of Titan's forges, cold, unstunned. 
Oh, vain each sinner's prayer of hope ! 
Alas, alas, all thoughts of future trust ! 
The bloody lanes of reigning Doom 
Are lasting tombs for souls accurst. 
When in a pool we lie and mope 
As vaulted temples rot in dust, 
Vague shapes and forms ascend to spell 
Infernal chasms of black gloom. 
When crested waves of billowed sea 
Are lashed by winds from foreign shoal, 
And foam-set breasts are dashed on high 
As silence holds the voiceless air, 
Unsavoujy dreams haunt each lee — 
The maw of Hell receives a soul ! 



A TRIP THROUGH HELL 103 

A leering fiend blinks at the sky. 

Beyond the realm of rulling Care, 
Caressed by suns and moons most fair, 
We fain would hye, all wrecks, and lie 
In dusky forests dells and vales; 
Beyond the Asian skies of blue, 
Where sports an elf, mayhap a hare, 
We fain would haste, each soul, and die. 
Unfurl all dreams and pinioned sails. 
And sleep unmourned in haunts we knew, 
Now wracks and domes stare at each soul. 
Giant goddards leak a rubic foam; 
Blind forges hold Contagion's breath; 
A Morgan longs for earthly home. 
,Tis so with hell's eternal shoal 
Where skinks eat flesh from wenches' bone; 
Tis thus with us purloined by Death, 
Infernal doom that spells a moan. 
Ten thousand years was Doom crown'd King; 
Sporadic prayers each gnarl'd one lisped; 



104 BETELGUESE 

Despotic sway all subjects curs'd 

When Hell was new and Earth unborn: 

Now souls of man in torture sing, 

Each Idol's glyph by damn'd one's kiss'd, 

Who then shall say who is the worst, 

A vyper's brood or man forsworn? 



MAH 13 19ua 



